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I have a Mac that can be upgraded to a more recent version of OSX (or macOS), but I never did so I’m still on MacOSX 10.7 Lion.

Today I need to install an application that needs a more recent version of OSX/macOS to run, so I need to upgrade.

I can find various new versions of OSX/macOS available for free through the Mac App Store application (which I have since I had MacOSX 10.6 Snow_Leopard), but I get an error saying that those won’t run.

Where can I get an official version of OSX 10.8 Mountain_Lion (or newer) ?

Answer :

If you have either MacOSX 10.6 Snow_Leopard or MacOSX 10.7 Lion installed on your Mac, your only option to upgrade your operating system to a newer version is to upgrade to OSX 10.8 Mountain_Lion first.

My children have seen all the raving YouTube-reviews about the painting game Passpartout The Starving Artist by Flamebait Games. Now they want to play the game themselves on their Mac. The regular version is on the Steam-platform, but that doesn’t work flawlessly on Macs with Parental Controls.

Is there a way to play a downloadable version of Passpartout The Starving Artist on their Macs ?

Answer :

Yes, there is an official downloadable version of the Passpartout The Starving Artist game for sale on the Flamebait website :

If you buy the game there, you will be able to download the game for Mac, Linux and Windows, either in 32bit or 64bit version. For all Macs running MacOSX 10.7 Lion or newer (including macOS 10.13 High_Sierra), you should download the 64bit version. The 32bit version is only for ‘obsolete’ (according to Apple) iMacs, MacBooks and Mac minis with Intel Core Solo and Intel Core Duo processors (so ‘first-generation’ Intel-Macs that are over 10 years old and run MacOSX 10.6 Snow Leopard).

While browsing the internet using Safari, I suddenly got a popup window which I can’t close. I expect it to be a scam, as there is only one button ; an OK-button.

As I don’t agree with the text I am supposed to agree on, and I don’t trust the sender either, I just want to close this popup-window. But the red ‘Close Window’-button is not responding, and I can’t switch to any other open browser windows either. Safari seems to hang.

I could of course restart Safari, but I have several windows open I haven’t saved yet and it would be a real hassle to loose them…

Isn’t there any way to shut this popup down without loosing any other open windows ?

Answer :

The popup you have encountered is most definitely a scam-popup, as there is no option to ‘not agree’.

It’s rather simple to get out of this awkward situation :

shut down your WiFi-connection : goto the ‘piece-of-pie’ icon in the top menu bar of the Finder –> then select “Turn Wi-Fi Off” from the pulldown menu that appears

pull the ethernet-cable from your Mac

now you’re disconnected from the Internet, you can safely click on the OK-button in the popup-window

the popup-window will now close, and you will now be able to normally use Safari again

now close all other windows you don’t need to have open

even though you could now reconnect to WiFi- or Ethernet-internet, it’s recommended to do the following first

still without internet-connection, open a new browser window : File –> New Window (or just press the CMD + N key-combo)

For my work I regularly get animated-GIF for online advertising campaigns send to me offline. As it turns out I can only view them in the Finder’s preview, but when I double-click on them, they open in Preview.app as a static picture…

What can I do ?

Answer :

As any .gif-file is considered as a picture by OSX, both static and animated GIFs will be opened in Preview.app by default. Too bad, but Preview.app can only display static pictures, no movies, nor dynamic pictures…

The solution is simple ; just make OSX by default open all .gif-files in an application that can handle animations, like your web browser.

make sure the triangular arrow in front of “Open with:” is pointing down

if the triangular arrow is pointing to the right, click on it

just below “Open with:” you will see “Preview (default)”

click on that, and change it to “Safari” (or any other application that can handle animated GIFs, if you don’t see the application you’re looking for listed, select “Other…” and select the one you prefer from you Applications folder)

then, don’t forget to click on the “Change All…”-button also

…that’s it, from now on, any .gif-file on your Mac will be opened in Safari (or your chosen alternative) by default, and you will see all animated-GIFs opened as animations when you lick on them.

I have a Canon CanoScan LiDE 20 that used to work perfectly in MacOSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. But now I’ve bought a new Mac which runs OSX 10.11 El_Capitan, I can’t seem to install it, since Canon doesn’t update the drivers anymore.

What can I do ?

Answer :

In OSX 10.7 Lion, 10.8 Mountain Lion, 10.9 Mavericks, 10.10 Yosemite and 10.11 El_Capitan, any TWAIN-supporting scanner can be used without any additional software.

A list of supported scanners for OSX 10.9 Mavericks can be found here.

Here’s a quick step-by-step instruction :

– connect your scanner directly to your Mac using a USB-cable

– open the System Preferences

– then click on “Print & Scan”

– then, just below in the list of printers on the left, click on the “+”-sign

– that will bring up the “Add”-window, which enables you to add a new printer or scanner

– if your scanner is TWAIN-supporting, it will show up there, and you just need to select it and click on the “Add”-button

– then it will be listed in the previous (“Print & Scan”) System Preferences window, and if you select it (and you put a piece of paper or a photo in the scanner), a Scanning Preview window will show up, allowing you to scan your document to file or eMail or something else…

but…

…for some printers, like the Canon CanoScan LiDE 20 and LiDE 30, the TWAIN-drivers are not included in OSX. In that case, you will need to install some generic (FREE) TWAIN-drivers :

IMPORTANT : do not forget to read this entire post, even all the notes at the bottom ! e.g. if you have an old CanoScan scanner, you might have to reinstall TWAINbridge.app also !

– for OSX 10.11 El_Capitan, download and install these files (in this same order) and restart you Mac after doing so, then your scanner will also show up in the “Print & Scan” System Preferences :

– if you get an error-message telling you you can’t install this software (these drivers) since the are not from Apple-appoved developers, you need to :

– open the System Preferences

– then click on “Security & Privacy”

– then make sure the “General”-tab is selected

– click the padlock in the lower left corner and provide an Administrator name & password to unlock the padlock

– then at “Allow applications downloaded from:” select “Anywhere”

– and exit the System Preferences to make this setting stick

Note #1 :

TWAIN-supporting drivers (like SANE and the ones that come with OSX) will enable you to directly scan from within various applications like Photoshop, MS Word, GraphicConverter, OmniPage and OSX’s built-in Image Capture. [ please also read Note #7 and #8 for more tips on this ! ]

Alex Scheider has written a special SANE scanner app for OSX 10.7 and newer, you can download it here. A screenshot can be found here. [haven’t tested it, so feedback on this is welcome]

Note #2 :

when using the SANE drivers, you will probably not be able to use the ‘one click’-buttons that are on the scanner itself…

Note #3 :

if your scanner lets you scan the first time, but after shut-down and restart scanning seems impossible because OSX can’t find the scanner, just plug-out the scanner’s USB-cable and plug it back in and everything should work again…

Note #4 :

if the “Scan”-button remains grayed-out, make sure that you have selected an area to scan… (put differently : if “Selection:” is set to “Off”, you will need to select an area to scan before the “Scan”-button will be ready to use…)

Note #5 :

if you get a distorted scan when scanning in landscape view (or any other rotated view), just scan normally in portrait view and rotate the scanned image afterwards (in Preview app or another image editing program, like Photoshop or Graphic Converter)

Note #6 :

if you are not able to scan as a JPEG (.jpg-flie), just scan as a TIFF (.tif-file) and convert the scanned image afterwards (in Preview app or another image editing program, like Photoshop or Graphic Converter)

Note #7 :

if your scanner doesn’t show up in Image Capture (especially in OSX 10.9 Mavericks), use this workaround :

another option that might just work to get SANE drivers to connect with ImageCapture and Photoshop (especially if you have an older CANON scanner) is (re)installing the TWAINbrigde.app that Jan Egil has ready for download on his website.

for now, there is no version of TWAINbridge.app that runs in OSX 10.11 El_Capitan, the alternative seems to be to use the old CanoScan Toolbox 5.0 software that can be found on the Canon website or here

If you encounter any problems with these SANE drivers for OSX, try contacting Mattias Ellert directly as indicated here.

If you want to un-install the TWAIN SANE drivers, either use an un-installer application like AppCleaner or follow the instructions for manual un-install as outlined in Mattias Ellert’s FAQ (last question & answer).